Quake jolts metro, north Cebu

Camille Dimco Ares was fixing a bottle of milk for her four-month-old baby in their residence in Barangay Cogon East in Carmen town, northern Cebu when she felt the house shake yesterday.

Ares then heard popping noises from the roof, saw some drinking glasses on the table move and watched her baby’s stroller fall on its side.

“We thought it was a 6-magnitude quake because it was really strong. Walay kabutangan among kakuyaw (We were really scared),” she told Cebu Daily News in a Facebook chat.

To Ares, memories of how the ground shook during the destructive 7.2-magnitude earthquake in October 2013 remain fresh.

At the Carmen town hall, employees rushed out of the building as soon as they felt the tremor.

No one was hurt nor any damage reported in the northern town, location of the epicenter of the 3.8-magnitude tectonic earthquake that rocked Cebu province yesterday.

“Salamat sa Kahitas-an kay wala gyud (Thank God that nothing happened),” Carmen Vice Mayor Al Silvestre Damiles said in a phone interview.

He advised the employees to go back inside the building after about five minutes and there were no aftershocks.

Robinson Giorgio, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology Central Visayas chief, said the quake was logged at 2:52 p.m. yesterday and was centered at 2 km southeast of Carmen town in northern Cebu.

It was felt at Intensity III in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu as well as in Consolacion and Liloan towns in northern Cebu.

Intensity II was felt in Catmon town, also in northern Cebu, while Intensity I was experienced in Poro, Camotes Islands.

Giorgio said it was not related to the 2.9-magnitude earthquake that shook Canlaon City in Negros Oriental yesterday morning,

The quake disrupted classes in Carmen town.

Rolando Buot III, a student of Carmen National High School, said he and other students were advised to go home at 3 p.m., or an hour before classes were supposed to end.

CALM

Although the quake was felt in Cebu City, no incidents of panic were recorded in areas where Cebuanos once fled towards higher ground for fear of a tsunami following an earthquake.

Most of the people in Cebu City remained where they were and went on with their activities shortly after the quake, said Councilor Dave Tumulak, who heads the Cebu City Command Control Center (C3).

“When we checked our CCTV cameras, the people just looked shocked for a brief time and then returned to what they were doing right after. It was just a few seconds also,” Tumulak said.

In Cebu City schools, no students ran out of their buildings. At City Hall, employees remained in their offices.

At the Mayor’s office, which is located at the ground floor of the Cebu City Hall, the staff did not even feel the quake.

“Wala gyud mi maka-feel. Ang taga taas ra. Wala ra man puy nanganaog. Nakahibalo lang ko nga naay earthquake kay nanawag akong bana (We didn’t feel a thing.

Only those in the higher floors did, but nobody went down. I just knew about the quake because my husband called me),” said Juvelyn Montecillo, appointment secretary.

But some residents down south felt the tremors.

Maria Fe Tayasan said she was lying on a bamboo bed listening to a radio drama inside her house in Sangat, San Fernando town in southern Cebu when the bed moved.

“It was strong because the bed was really shaking,” she said in a separate Facebook chat.